"A lot of commercial software comes with H.264 encoders and decoders, and some computers arrive with this software preinstalled. This leads a lot of people to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever purpose they like. Unfortunately for them, it ain't so."

"There is another point to consider: if self-interested companies only provide source material in platform-lock-in formats such as Silverlight, and extortionist pay-us-forever-not-just-once formats such as h.264, then what choice do users have?

You have the choice not to use those sites.

If you happen to be working at company IT, you could consider blocking such sites in your firewall on the basis of "dubious legal status", if you are into that sort of thing. "

So it is their way and get fleeced, or nothing?

Fortunately, web standards are still public standards. All it should require is accurate disclosure of exactly how non-standards such as Silverlight and h.264 are hyper-massive rip-offs, and how the Internet-using public is being royally fleeced, and government consumer protection agencies should be able to step in and stop big companies from running scams such as those any longer.

Meanwhile, the big business rip-off artists are apparently trying a new angle to stop adoption of FOSS alternatives, so that they can merrily continue perpetrating their hyper-scams: